What is the relationship between energy and effectiveness in ministry? A number of metaphors are used.
Some pastors see themselves as a mountain pool, needing both an inlet and an outlet to stay fresh. Others use the sine curve as a model, with fluctuations in energy and enthusiasm considered natural and expected. Both groups want to remain effective.
To find out how to keep a sharp cutting edge in ministry, LEADERSHIP editors Jim Berkley and Marshall Shelley met with four Minneapolis-area pastors:
-Leith Anderson, from Wooddale Church in nearby Eden Prairie
-Bruce Chapman, of First Evangelical Free Church in Minneapolis
-Phil Sackett, of Excelsior Bible Church
-George Voeks, long-time pastor of East Emmanuel Lutheran Church in St. Paul.
Leadership: You appear to be happy survivors in ministry. What’s your secret?
Bruce Chapman: I have a principle for long tenure in a church: People can put up with pastoral weaknesses if they know the pastor is growing. When pastors start to stagnate, there will be discomfort among the members.
Of course, finding a good marriage of pastor and church in the first place is important. Our courtship is so short and the tenure is supposed to be long-it’s often a high-risk engagement.
Phil Sackett: For me, a strong sense of mission is crucial. It’s hard to imagine anyone working effectively for a lifetime without having that sense of call right in front of them-almost written on the inside of their eyelids. If I lose sight of my mission, my vitality disappears fast.
Chapman: I find today that not many pastors say they have a distinct call. That troubles me; I had a very distinct sense of call, which has helped keep me from giving up at some points.
Leith Anderson: Let me turn that a little, Bruce. I think theologically we are called to be Christians; we are not primarily called to be pastors. One of the causes of burnout in pastors is they see themselves primarily as pastors and not as persons and Christians.
I want to remain integrated as a person, whether or not I’m a pastor. I serve Jesus Christ in whatever place he puts me, whatever he asks me to do.
Chapman: I once had a staff member who, when asked if he planned to remain in Christian ministry, would say he didn’t know. He was always looking over his shoulder, wondering whether he should stay in the ministry. I thought, How can you give yourself fully to what you’re doing if you don’t have a sense of call?
Anderson: People outside the will of God are usually amiss in terms of their whole life. I assume they have problems when they drive their cars and mow their lawns and everything else, because all of life is out of sync.
I don’t see much distinction between the way I live my life as a pastor and the way I live my life as a neighbor or as a husband and father. I am me. I do them all the same way. I’m not sure I’ve seen many pastors who are energetic and forceful in the pastorate but are not energetic in the rest of their lives.
Bruce, your sister-in-law told me how one time you hung wallpaper until two o’clock in the morning. She said, “That’s just Bruce. When he does something, he does it all the way.” Do you have a call to wallpaper? My guess is that’s just who you are. Under the lordship of Christ, you function the same way as paperhanger or pastor-flat out.
Sackett: Before I became a pastor, I worked as a research chemist and taught in a Christian college. If I didn’t have a strong sense now that the pastorate is where God wants me, I couldn’t continue to pastor very effectively.
In my first pastorate, I repeatedly wondered if I were doing the right thing. Partly it had to do with the fact that I could always return to teaching.
The thing I came back to over and over again was, Am I convinced God brought me to this place? Has he told me clearly to leave? I decided to stay until I was satisfied God had a different place for me.
Anderson: Did the people believe you belonged there?
Sackett: Only a few. I’m a teacher, but most of them wanted a preacher who would get up and yell. I felt I wasn’t valued for the gifts I had. By the time I left, I felt a sense of appreciation, but that didn’t come through very strongly earlier in my ministry there.
Right now I’m satisfied that I’m in the vocation I ought to be in and that I’m at the church where God wants me. Without that sense, my energy level would be low.
Leadership: What about the converse? Is your energy and endurance, perhaps, a confirmation of your call to ministry?
George Voeks: I feel it is. I remember the first chapel sermon I heard at Luther Seminary. The speaker said, “There will be times in your life when you’ll wish you were running a gas station in North Dakota. But because God has called you, you’re going to hang in there.”
I felt a strong call. Before the call came, I was selling insurance and doing well. When the call came, I couldn’t sell anything because I knew this was where God wanted me. And as we endure, it confirms the call.
Leadership: What drains your ministerial energy?
Sackett: Administration. It drains me because that’s not where I feel I’m gifted. Doing something outside your gifted area is more a drain than working in line with your gifts.
Anderson: Our level of capabilities plays a part, too. I would think it extremely draining to pastor a church larger than my capabilities and to be criticized simply because I was mismatched with the job.
Leadership: Are there cyclical factors-times during the year that consistently tax you?
Chapman: After eighteen years in the same church, Easter sermons get tough. I sure knew this was my nineteenth Easter!
I’m also down when the finances are bad. I carry that personally. It discourages me when the general fund is in the red or there’s a drop in attendance or I sense my leaders are lethargic to catch my vision.
Anderson: That is probably unique to the senior pastor I find our staff pastors don’t worry much about the general fund. Only I worry about that. And I’m probably the only person who really cares how many were in church last Sunday morning.
A lot of pastors’ spirits rise and fall on the basis of Sunday’s “returns.” Spiritually we say that isn’t an appropriate thing to do. But in reality, it happens. High attendance affirms us because we confuse who we are with how well we do.
Sackett: I think a pastor’s energy level has a lot to do with the quality of his relationship with his leaders. With good relationships, there’s support. But it’s different for the pastor who dreads every encounter with somebody in leadership.
Anderson: We’ve been through some hard times at Wooddale, but I made it because I believed better times would come. I wonder how people go on when there’s no hope, at least by normal standards.
If you want to change the organization, relocate, or do whatever you believe is important, and you realize it will never happen, it’s got to be hard to get up in the morning and go on.
Sackett: It depends on the time scale, too. If I say, “I want to see the church grow,” and after ten years it hasn’t done a thing, I have to wonder whether I’m doing the right thing.
Early in a pastorate, it may be necessary for some people to leave before the church unites in a common direction. There’s a breaking-in period. You might not see the kind of growth you’d like, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing. Later on, lack of growth can be much more debilitating.
Chapman: Overexposure to my congregation drains me. People listen to us so much that I think it drains them and us. Familiarity breeds contempt, and there’s such pressure to stay fresh for those three or four times a week when I’m exposed to the congregation.
Anderson: Preaching drains me, too, and not because I don’t like it. It’s because I give away a piece of my soul each Sunday, and I have to grow some more back.
Leadership: What do you mean by “giving away a piece of your soul”?
Anderson: I heard a preacher at a meeting in Estes Park, Colorado. He was thoughtful, pointed, and eloquent. After he finished, there was a standing ovation, but he went over to his seat and sat down as if the crowd weren’t there. He was exhausted. It wasn’t because he yelled or shouted or paraded across the platform; it was because he gave himself away.
A preacher who doesn’t give away part of his soul is shortchanging his people. When I stand in the pulpit, I have a responsibility both to God and those people. My message has to speak to me and be a part of me. I’ve got to give of my emotions and my spiritual life and my convictions. I’m wiped out by that. I don’t think that’s bad. People who run marathons are ready to die at the end. They need to recoup from that run before they enter another race. So, too, with pastors after a sermon.
Voeks: In a sense, a sermon is sacramental. You don’t share just words but your life. When I do that and I come to the Lord in a drained state, it’s like getting a transfusion, getting ready to go again.
Leadership: With many things sapping your strength, what do you do to compensate?
Chapman: I tried a heart attack. (Laughter)
Leadership: That’s pretty drastic. Did the ministry contribute to your heart attack?
Chapman: I think it was mostly my heritage and my Type A temperament. As Leith said, I wallpaper until 2:00 in the morning. Actually, I was fishing when I had my heart attack. I should have been working so I would have had a good reason for it.
Anderson: How many church people did you have with you on the fishing trip?
Chapman: Good question. About half a dozen.
Leadership: Prosecution rests. (Laughter)
What do the rest of you do on those days when you feel like quitting? Do you have any first aid you administer to yourself?
Sackett: I’ve made a deal with the Lord never to quit on a Monday or the day after a board meeting. Anything I do has to be thought out longer than that.
Chapman: I had a denominational leader tell me, “In Minnesota, never make a decision in February.” He wasn’t being sarcastic. And I agree. Don’t make a major decision when you’re feeling down.
Anderson: I’ll get out and run in the morning, and say to myself, Give it seventy-two hours and then evaluate the problem. Most things that discourage me are dwarfed by some new problem within seventy-two hours. Early in my pastoral experience, I thought many things were decisive issues, but I have since found that none were.
Leadership: Are there preventive measures to keep you from needing first aid?
Sackett: I like to take a break, be gone for a day and do something completely different. Recently we went with our kids to a Bible quiz out of town. It was good for all of us. My wife said, “We didn’t think about the church at all. We just had a good time.” Even if I can’t take the whole day off, we’ll take a short trip somewhere.
Voeks: Some of my most beautiful times with the Lord are when I’m mountain climbing. He loves to sneak up on us when we least expect it. He comes at us in so many ways: while we’re playing ball, seeing the smile on a child, being in nature. “All the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.”
But there’s another passage I like-Psalm 145- “Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God. Let thy good Spirit lead me on a level path.” I try to maintain that level path.
Anderson: We can contribute to the levelness of the path. If I am distraught by not having sermons done by Saturday night, I can rearrange my schedule to have them done earlier in the week. For example, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I don’t eat meals; I study all day, and then I’m done. People won’t get an appointment with me those days, except in an emergency. And there are very few emergencies.
At seminary a counseling professor told us, “Anything that absolutely must be handled now-you’re not capable of handling anyway.” That eliminates most emergencies.
However, many of us in helping professions are driven primarily by a need for affirmation, and so we accommodate ourselves to everybody. That leads to burnout. It isn’t a function of the job; it’s from our failure to take control of our own lives and schedules.
Leadership: Most of us agree in principle that time apart helps a ministry, but how do you get the congregation to swallow it?
Voeks: When they see your freshness after you’ve been away, they see the benefits. When I come back, they say, “Let’s send him away more!”
Chapman: My people want me to take more time off. I’m the one who resists; I just don’t do it.
Leadership: Besides days off, what else do you do to keep yourself fresh and enthusiastic in your task?
Voeks: One of the keys is to maintain a devotional relationship with the Lord. I don’t mean just to pray, but maintaining a devotional posture. I discovered I was more interested in what I was doing for the Lord than what I was being. I found myself coming to the Lord as a homiletical shoplifter. I came to get something to say to someone else. I loved my ministry more than him. It was one of the greatest days in my life when Jesus said, “George, would you just sit down and enjoy me! I love you for what you are, not for what you do for me.”
Leadership: You’re talking about changing the lenses through which you see ministry.
Voeks: That’s right. I’ve discovered that the breadth of my ministry is determined by the depth of my relationship with Jesus. Since I’ve grown into that understanding, there’s been unlimited energy.
Leadership: Was there a turning point in your life when this happened?
Voeks: I was a late starter, so I felt I had to get going for the Lord because the world needed to be saved. But I developed chest pains when I was forty. Then I started to realize how much of my life was not under the rule of the Spirit, how it was me working those first years of ministry.
I had limited worship to Sunday morning. I had to learn to develop a worship lifestyle. Nehemiah says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” I haven’t arrived yet, but I’m learning to draw my strength through worship.
Chapman: Doing new kinds of things is essential for me. I’m sure I frustrate my congregation; I give them more new ideas than they want to hear. But a new project or a new challenge or even a new sermon series invigorates me. I get refreshed by involving myself with a new set of people or doing some basics differently.
I’ve started preaching without a pulpit. Chuck Swindoll gave me the idea. He said, “Be yourself; do what you want to do.” So the next Sunday I pushed the pulpit aside and did my thing. That’s been fun and refreshing.
It’s helpful to be active in some ministry outside my own congregation. I’m active in denominational affairs and a home for the aged. I like to go antique hunting and to work with my hands. I have a lake cabin I go to regularly. I play golf. I hunt. I have too many pursuits, actually. But when I do those things, I leave behind my congregational responsibilities.
Anderson: We all need two things in life: routine and variety. Some things need to be as routine as possible, so you don’t have to waste energy on decision making. I always buy my gas at the same service station. If it goes up or down a penny, I don’t waste my time deciding where to go. I get up at the same time every morning so I don’t have to change the alarm clock.
I relegate as much as I can to routine, and then I add variety. I have the freedom within that routine to be refreshed by the variety. For example, I work hard to finish my sermon early in the week so I don’t have to worry about it the rest of the week.
Leadership: Let’s look at some of the variables that affect energy. How has the march of time, the aging process, impacted your energy for ministry?
Anderson: I don’t think the issue is necessarily age. More commonly it concerns career progression and ages of children. People often reach their stride vocationally at the same time their children reach adolescence. So the time when you can travel and speak, or when you’re involved in denominational activities, is just when your children need you.
I’ve got to decide where I’m going to expend my energy-getting professional affirmation or spending time with my children. It’s been painful, but my decision has been to say no to many opportunities.
James Dobson tells the story that his father died with his children gathered around the bed. Dobson concludes that when he dies, it’s more important that his children want to surround him than how many books he’s published or how many television programs he’s done.
Chapman: I do think aging, at least diminished physical stamina, is very real.
I work all the time. My relaxation is working hard at something else. Last Saturday we refinished some furniture. I used to be able to recoup from that without any drain on my energy, but that’s not true any more. Maybe I’ve got a sore throat today because I did something I could do ten years ago without a problem but I can’t handle any more. That’s the reality I have to face.
Voeks: I have more energy now than I did when I was forty, because I was short-circuiting a lot of the energy with anxious anger. I wonder if energy isn’t as much a factor of attitude as it is of age. My days are much longer now than they’ve ever been.
In our inner-city setting we have a lot of blue-collar people who look to me or other leaders for direction. You can say, “Go away. I need some time to recuperate.” But if God has given you a pastor’s heart and people are out there hurting, I don’t care how far you retreat, you hurt with them. But not if you know someone is taking care of them.
The beautiful thing is, the Lord has brought me lay leaders who see our church as a mission field. I’ve invested my life in them and given them the leadership. They run with it. I’ve been there twenty-two years, and when I first came, it was much different. I was being pulled many ways. It’s much less sapping now.
Chapman: There is certainly some truth in that, but I don’t think many would quarrel with the fact that as you get older, your physical energy diminishes. I do use it more wisely today, though perhaps I can’t operate as hard physically as I once did. I’m sure I’m more effective with the time I do have.
I probably spend less time preparing sermons because of the many resources I didn’t have earlier. There are other advantages, too, like increased Bible knowledge and wisdom. Preaching comes easier and is more joyful.
Leadership: Doing something the twentieth time is a lot easier than the first-except Easter sermons.
Sackett: I’m the newest to the ministry here, and one of the things I had to learn as I was getting established was to view the church not as my church but as the Lord’s church. As long as I felt responsible for it, that how it progressed reflected on me, and that I had to make it go, I lost a lot of energy.
I had to come to the point of saying, It’s his church, and if he doesn’t want it to grow the way I would like it to, I’m willing for him to use it as it is. I had to detach myself from the church enough that its ups and downs didn’t totally sap my resources. That was a turning point for me.
Voeks: It certainly involves not measuring success by the world’s standards. When God has disciplined the pastor to the point where success isn’t necessary for happiness, then he’ll allow that pastor to succeed.
Leadership: In your experience, has the location of your church made a difference? For instance, is a rural church less draining than an urban congregation?
Chapman: Our support systems vary depending on where we are. I’ve served three rural churches in small towns, and now I’m in a suburban atmosphere. In a rural situation you have a strong support system in your people. My son began his ministry in a rural church, and he gets strokes you wouldn’t believe.
The down side in a smaller or rural church is that you have to adjust more to the people than the people adjust to you. In my present church, they pretty much adjusted to me.
Anderson: In my first church, I’d never have thought of not showing up for a work day, not even if it were my day off or my wedding anniversary. My absence would have communicated that I didn’t want to get dirty, that I wasn’t one with them. In a larger church or one that has more of a management mentality, that isn’t as important.
Some people think of the ministry in terms of a mission to be fulfilled; others think of it as hours to be put in. If you’re serving a church where most people punch a clock, they’re going to be more concerned about whether you’re putting in the time. At more white-collar churches, the issue is not if you put in the time, within reason, but if you produce. Realistically, the pastor must accommodate to the prevailing mind set.
Leadership: You’re in a blue-collar church, George. Do your people expect you to put in hours, at least to be visible, available?
Voeks: The leadership doesn’t, but the others do. That’s why I get out of town on my day off. They would probably be standing there knocking at the door.
Sackett: I’d never lived in a city smaller than one hundred thousand people when I took a church in a town of two thousand. We went through culture shock. I found how interrelated the people are. We were living in a fishbowl. In the suburban town where I live now, must of the people don’t have any idea I’m a pastor. But in the small town, when I walked down Main Street, everybody in town knew what was going on at the church. I felt constantly on display.
In addition, there I was with a Ph.D. in chemistry, and only one other person at the church had a college degree. Struggling to say things in their idiom was a continual energy drain. I was constantly wanting to make myself understood and wondering if they would ever accept me.
Leadership: What about the question of pace? Can a Christian leader rightfully hold anything in reserve?
Voeks: “It’s better to burn out than to rust out” is a heroic statement, but in any event, you’re out! I think you need to pace yourself.
Sackett: Jesus paced himself.
Anderson: I agree. In my first pastorate, I got into the rut of taking Saturday night social commitments. When we moved to Minnesota, we resolved not to do that. We’re even working on eliminating Saturday evening weddings at Wooddale. I know Sunday morning does me in, and if I’m to do a good job preaching, I can’t be shot by going out on Saturday night. That says, in effect, “Your dinner party is not as important as tomorrow’s service.”
I also take a nap on Sunday afternoons for a couple of hours because I’m beat. So if somebody invites us out to Sunday dinner, I politely refuse.
Chapman: I have trouble pacing myself. My pace is wide open all the time, and I pay the price. I’m learning to do better. One of the ways is to take counsel from my lay people and especially my wife.
For eighteen years I have wanted to change our organizational structure. Someday that’s going to happen-but not now, and that’s difficult to bear. I was ready to push it through, but one wise gentleman counseled me that probably it was not propitious to do it now. This time I listened. I just said OK and set it aside. There was a day when I would not have done that.
Sackett: The pastor has got to know how to go to bed at the end of the day with a clear conscience. If he had a thousand things to do in the morning and he’s only done five, there are still 995 left. He’s got to be able to fall asleep peacefully, rebuking the Devil and refusing to accept false guilt over the 995 things that didn’t get done. I have to understand that all God really wants of me in a given day is my best effort. I’ll tackle the rest tomorrow.
Anderson: It’s helpful to compensate with things you can complete. Millard Erickson at Bethel Seminary told a story about when as a pastor he installed a bathroom in his house. Every day when he came home from his pastoral responsibilities, he would go into the bathroom, flush the toilet, and just watch it because it gave him such a sense of satisfaction. Something was finished!
Sackett: Any project that can be completed-working on the car, remodeling the basement-is helpful, because when you’re working with people, they’re never finished.
But having a set of church jobs that remain undone can be a challenge to the lay people, at least in a small church. It says, “Here are some things that are not going to get done. The pastor just doesn’t have time to do them. So if you want them done, you’ll have to do them.” If I exhaust myself doing those things, then everybody says, “Great. He doesn’t need my help. Everything’s getting done without me.”
Leadership: Youthful vitality is in. Everybody’s jogging and working out. Is it OK for a pastor not to be energetic?
Anderson: Not in most congregations. Congregations may like short-term vulnerability. But even if we are great pastors, if inactivity goes on for a year or more, people will probably start to say, “We need another pastor.” Churches ultimately need a pastor who will do the job.
Chapman: That’s true, but it’s relative. Some of my people wish I were less energetic. They say, “Slow down, Pastor.” I think they liked my heart attack because they figured it would finally slow me down a little.
Anderson: A pulpit committee chairman once asked me what I thought about several candidates. As we talked about one guy, I listed all his accomplishments. The chairman replied, “Yes, but he seems rather laid back.” Lack of energy is either perceived as ineptitude or laziness, and neither of those are acceptable. Ineptitude is particularly unacceptable in urban settings, and laziness is anathema in rural settings.
Leadership: How would you compare the energy demands of the pastorate to other occupations?
Sackett: Coming out of the academic setting, I found pastoring a hundred times harder than teaching. When you’re the resident physical chemist in a college, nobody argues with you. Nobody criticizes you. You’re the expert. I was always imparting information other people didn’t have, and they would say, “OK. I’ll accept that.”
In the church everybody has an opinion-right or wrong-about how things ought to be. Pastors have to argue their case like anyone else, and that’s where I felt the difference acutely. I was used to very little conflict. In the pastorate people feel free to take pot shots at you, even when you don’t deserve it. Living with criticism was one of the biggest energy drains for me until I learned to thank the Lord for it, forgive the person involved, look for whatever grain of truth there might have been in it, and say to the Lord: “My desire is to serve you and not men. If I’m doing what’s right, I don’t care who’s pleased about it, as long as you are.” That was tough to learn, but you sure have to learn it or suffer the loss of energy.
Chapman: What we consider one of the greatest jobs in the world does have its liabilities:
If somebody is tired or sick, I end up helping them, no matter how tired or sick I am. I’m not my own boss; everybody is my boss. I have the pressure of making people feel they have my complete time, and yet I haven’t enough time for all those people. I feel responsible to meet the needs of all our people.
But these liabilities have flip sides. I can think of a number of energy assets-privileges-that come with this task:
When I’m tired, I can take a nap since I make my own schedule. I can be my own boss. I have many friends, receive many accolades, get a lot of support. I don’t have to work at being part of the congregation; I immediately belong. I have a sense of call from the God of the universe to talk about Jesus, and there is no greater privilege than that. It’s part of my job to study about Christ. Who else has that privilege?
I get paid for the greatest job in the world. How are you going to beat that?
Voeks: I agree. To be loved by those who love him and rejected by those who reject him-what greater honor is there?
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